"Its
strength lies in its rawness, innocence and lack
of polish, as it gets the concerned singer's
message out loud and clear to those who are
believers."

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Legendary Canadian folk-rocker Neil Young presents a
movie video (much like a home video) shot in three
weeks on a handheld German Super 8 underwater camera.
It's something he calls "a musical novel," a musical
feature of Young's album of the same name. There's no
dialogue, as 10 songs on the album are lip-synched by
the actors. Each song is introduced by a hand-drawn,
black-and-white drawing.

The experimental film offers healthy doses of the
sage's pet protest issues, libertarianism views and
political sanity stances (including Bush bashing and
pro environmental sentiments). It's done in an
episodic fashion that chronicles life for the Green
family in a fictional all-American town named
Greendale, located in Northern California. The family
patriarch is the pony-tailed baseball hat wearing
Grandpa Green (Ben Keith), who lives on the Double-E
ranch with his family (the ranch signifies his
positive back to the soil roots). His son Earl (James
Mazzeo) is an impoverished painter. The opening song
has father and son sitting on rocking chairs on the
porch and reading the bad news in the newspapers about
government blunders, as they lip-synch Young's potent
but simple lyrics about freedom and America's moral
backslide: ''A little love and affection/in everything
you do/and the world will be a better place/either
with or without you.''

In his quiet, prophetic way the intelligent,
informed and artistic Young beats the same drum he
always has, as he voices unhappiness with the media
being co-opted by big business interest, the
government's growing intrusions into our private lives
and its fear mongering as even more of our civil
liberties are being taken away, and the insatiable
appetite of corporate greed.

TV images of reactionary politicians (John Ashcroft
and Tom Ridge) and unending violence affect the whole
town with a growing sense of doom; the Devil (Eric
Johnson), done up in a duplicate red sports coat and
shoes, struts about town stirring up trouble wherever
he can and takes advantage of our confused states to
instigate the murder of a cop.

The film reflects Young's anger at the land being
raped and the individual's rights being trampled on.
It's now the younger generation's chance to ply their
activism, as we witness Green's spirited redheaded
granddaughter Sun Green (Sarah White) pick up the
mantle of the family's activist tradition by departing
for Alaska to be an environmental activist against the
unsound policies of Powerco that are ruining the
wilderness's ecosystem. While protesting, the FBI
raids her home and plants marijuana leading to her
highly publicized arrest.

The film concludes on a high note with its most
powerful number -- ''Be the Rain,'' whose chorus
(uniting soldier, fireman, policeman and hippie)
implores us to ''save the planet for another
day.''

Its strength lies in its rawness, innocence and lack
of polish, as it gets the concerned singer's message
out loud and clear to those who are believers. Others
will find some excuse to scorn the film (in other
words, the valid message), by railing about the grainy
picture or that the songs weren't produced in a slick
techie package like most other MTV videos.